Mindless Interventionism Is Bad For America

It turns out that Obama’s Iraq-based view of America’s role in the world, according to which American preeminence is bad for the world and bad for America, is not shared by societies and movements in many regions. They need, and deserve, support in their struggles.

That doesn’t describe Obama’s view all that well, but then accuracy has never been all that important for Wieseltier. Whether it involves calling Obama “Henry Kissinger’s epigone” or attributing other views to him that he almost certainly doesn’t hold, this is just an exercise in setting Obama up as a caricature of what he thinks realists are. It’s true that there are “societies and movements” that would like the U.S. to provide them with support, and in some cases they might even want military assistance, but while they might need that support it is frequently not the case that the U.S. is obliged to provide it.

If an opposition group or government is calling on the U.S. to do something for them, Wieseltier and other interventionists like him assume that the U.S. should more or less unthinkingly do it. They can’t see any good reason not to, and they’ll dismiss any reason that others might give them. It doesn’t seem to matter whether doing these things serves any discernible U.S. interest, nor does it matter what the costs or possible negative consequences might be. According to this view, the U.S. should intervene again and again because it may advance someone else’s cause. This sets up the U.S. to be suckered into one conflict after another with no end in sight, since there will always be some groups and nations that will hope for and demand U.S. backing. Giving it to them may or may not prove to be good for their countries, but it will definitely be bad for America.

After thirty years of loyal readership, I finally ended – definitively – my subscription to TNR. In large measure because they have not yet thrown Wieseltier into the Hudson, along with the rest of the garbage. (Yes, yes, there is a health hazard with so much bile, hatred and poison in one sack of brittle skin – but really, time has come ….)

Wieseltier and Slaughter represent, it seems to me, the continuing nefarious influence of Rousseau on the thinking of liberalism. Social change – even on a grand global scale – is forever a reverie in the Savoyard mountainside. With one small caveat: unlike the citizens of Rouseau’s utopia, the bombed have no say in the General (US) Will; they just have to accept being forced to be free, mostly from their bodies, or loved ones.

Sad to think that Burke’s observations on Rousseauan “abstractions” are still valid criticism of the latter’s US-based progeny well over two-hundred years hence.

If an opposition group or government is calling on the U.S. to do something for them, Wieseltier and other interventionists like him assume that the U.S. should more or less unthinkingly do it. Oh, I’m sure that’s not true. If the “opposition group or government” (Chavez in Venezuela or Castro in Cuba would be some obvious examples of the latter) opposes either Israel or some other US client or US domination anywhere, I doubt that Wieselter wants the US to support it.

While Obama is slowly removing US leadership from the rest of the world, global trade, economics, and communication continue to increase. My guess other nations appreciate this interaction a lot more than American leadership (which usually starts with bombs.)

At this The Ukraine is falling into Civil and Russian war and hopefully the US can remain on the sidelines. Let Putin dig his own grave on this one.

Speaking of mindless intervention: What about the current U.S. intervention in Ukraine? We’ve got no national interests in Ukraine and yet we seem to be determined to play a game of “chicken” with the one player that not only has national interests in Ukraine, but that is the only other player on the planet with enough deliverable nuclear weapons to reduce the U.S. population to pre-1900 levels.

Although nearly everyone seems to assume that the game of chicken will end in some form of compromise before matters escalate beyond a failsafe point, given that we could reach the compromise diplomatically without first playing the game of chicken, why don’t we? Especially given that the possible consequences of miscalculation are exactly those consequences that we managed to avoid during all the years of the Cold War.

Once upon a time – usually as part of a case explaining why socialism was inherently unworkable – conservatives used to rely heavily on the axiom that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Somehow that argument got quietly locked away once the USA became the unchallenged global superpower.

It seems to me that deep down, people like Wieseltier have fallen in love with the idea that America rules the world, to the extent they no longer see any need to justify it or even explain why it’s in America’s own interests. They just love to feel themselves to be part of the ruling global elite, and they will resist any development that threatens that superior status as something which ought to be opposed.

Ken L,
I think that is a great comment but unfortunately the mighty Leon is motivated by something more basic and tribal. I hate to make this argument because it is easily dismissed with the wave of the hand as racism, but sometimes disrepute is a product of truth. Please also note that I am not putting myself or my tribe, religious or ethnic, above Leon’s. There is glory enough for all in this world and I have never understood ethnic triumphalism or jealously, but most people are much more sensitive on these topics.
Leon is many things, even a decent thinker but he is also a champion of his people and as such he will argue what is required to make sure the if the moment should ever come and Israel needs the assistance of the United States for its survival that the presidency and the congress not hesitate for an hour to provide support. One way to make sure the support is instantaneous is to promote an idea of America as the protector of what is good in the world and always ready to lend a hand. Thus America must intervene frequently and enthusiasticly less this instinct deminish. I think this analysis is wrong in that it sets up the US to consume itself externally and produce the opposite sentiment, which we now see in American popular opinion, let’s stay at home. As insane as it sounds this is what Leon and his fp like minded thinkers believe.